HISTORICAL NOTES: Why Are Americans American?

What is there in the U.S. heritage
that gives Americans a basic spirit of independence and optimism? In
1893, youthful (31) Historian Frederick Jackson Turner stirred the
American Historical Association with a strikingly original theory.
Americans were not simply transplanted Europeans. "The existence
of an area of free land," said he, "and the advance of
American settlement westward explain American development." The
distinctive American character was developed in practical everyday life
on the free soil of the frontier. By Turner's reckoning, America's
character was set in the historical epoch that ended...